


it'll pass

by dirkgcntly



Category: Fleabag (TV), The History Boys (2006) RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, dakin may show up as that one lawyer potentially, n yet here i am, nobody asked for this, posner as fleabag, scripps as hot priest, shitty fleabag au of thb, this is on brand
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:13:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24851368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirkgcntly/pseuds/dirkgcntly
Summary: i thought about fleabag telling the priest she loves him and him saying 'it'll pass' and posner saying 'what if i don't want it to pass' in far too quick succession. this is the result. please b nice, im shite at proof reading and i havent written since like 2017/18
Relationships: David Posner/Donald Scripps, Stuart Dakin/David Posner, Tom Irwin/David Posner
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. cool, sweary priest

Soft but tinny music flowed through the bathroom speakers as Posner tried to dab the blood away from his nose without causing any further damage. He winced as he brushed his fingers across bone that was definitely bruised, if not broken. As he contemplated tackling the blood that had seeped onto his shirt, there was a knock at the door.  
“Can I do anything?” called a voice from outside.  
“No, thank you”. Posner replied, rinsing the cloth underneath the tap once more.  
“They’ve all gone, you know?” called the voice again.  
Posner tilted his head back with a sigh, trying to stop the nosebleed from starting up again as the bathroom door creaked open. 

* 

Posner had done absolutely everything right. He'd gotten a personal trainer, turned down one night stands, eaten copious amounts of avocado on toast and was finally, in his mid-thirties, starting to feel like an adult. Though, despite his best efforts, his sister's unforgiving glare from the other side of the restaurant table was enough to bring every mistake he’d ever made to the foreground. Her lecherous husband, Martin, perched in the chair next to her wasn’t helping either. After listening to his father make a half-hearted attempt at a speech where he almost admitted to loving his family but stopped himself just in time, Posner slumped in his seat, fiddling with his empty wine glass. He glanced around the table, looking for an ally amongst the polite chaos. His soon to be step-mother was proud, pretentious and crude, his father decidedly the complete opposite and neither of them liked him very much. His brother-in-law was a totally different story altogether. His sister had always been his go to whenever he was forced to spend time with his family. They had never been particularly close but they had both been close with their mother and while Claire was certainly the favourite, Posner never blamed his parents for this. After all, she had a highly-paid, high-flying job in something impressive like finance or law and he was an Oxford drop-out running a guinea pig themed cafe. But it turns out that snogging her husband was the straw that broke the theoretical camel's back for Claire, even if it wasn’t Posner’s fault. He poked and prodded at the pack of cigarettes in his pocket as his gaze wandered to the last person on the table. A taller, blonde man who wasn’t bad-looking just perpetually-confused-looking, though that was a fairly standard reaction when meeting the Posner family for the first time. 

The waiter tentatively filled David’s glass almost to the brim, waiting for a ‘stop’ or an ‘enough' but it never came. As he rounded the table to Claire, she lay her hand over the top of her glass.  
“None for us, thank you!” she remarked.  
“Is there a reason you’re not drinking?” asked the stranger, raising his own glass to his lips.  
“He’s an alcoholic,” said Claire, gesturing to her husband.  
“Oh, fun! My parents are alcoholics!” he replied, earning a slightly uncomfortable laugh from the rest of the table.  
As Posner’s sister and step-mother started into a far too in-depth discussion about handbags, Posner zoned out, eyes fixed on Claire’s empty wine glass. He hadn’t seen her since their step-mother's art exhibition where he had (regrettably but not really) thrown multiple champagne glasses onto the floor in full view of his entire family, his ex-boyfriend and several dozen strangers. Claire had also called him a liar and chosen her husband over him. This, of course, isn’t counting when they had bumped into each other at the restaurant entrance where Claire had told him he looked nice and asked him where he’d been. David, feeling very pleased with himself, had told her Boots and that it was lovely there this time of year. 

“Oh, yes, it is real fur but it’s okay because it had a stroke! You can’t go to hell for that, can you?” asked their step-mother. Most of the table laughed. David didn’t.  
“No, as long as you confess then you’ve nothing to fucking worry about!” replied the stranger. The table laughed again. David didn’t. Religion had always been a slight point of contention amongst their family. Saying his strict, Jewish father had to get used to David being gay would be putting it lightly. It wasn’t that he came round to the idea, more that, like he did with everything, he stopped acknowledging it. Posner had never been anti-religion himself, in fact there had been multiple times when he’d found comfort in his family’s beliefs. He had, however, suffered significant rejection by his family on the grounds of their religion and watching his father passively marry in a Catholic church because of his fiance’s wishes, only fanned the flames of his burning hatred for the woman doing a horrific job at replacing his mother. He sighed, fidgeting in his seat as he realised that nobody had asked him a question in 45 minutes. 

“So, what do you do?” 

Posner shifted, turning to face the man he figured to be the couples priest. 

“I run a cafe”

“And that’s going well, I take it?” asked his father, speculatively. 

“It is” responded Posner, reaching for his glass. Met with silence, he tried again. “It really is. It actually is”. He was met with more silence. “Excuse me” he muttered, standing up from his chair, rubbing his hands across his eyes and walking towards the back door of the restaurant. 

*

David rested his head against the cold stone of the restaurant wall, flicking cigarette ash into the night air. He understood, he really did, He’d become quite comfortable in his position as the family disappointment. From a very early age, he sat back and watched his sister fly through every obstacle life threw at her. Even when their mother died, she seemed to handle all of the funeral arrangements with just enough calm for the world to believe she was strong but not enough for the world to believe she was cold. Posner fell to pieces. Not just after his mother’s death but consistently, at any minor inconvenience, Posner fell to pieces. He thought he’d finally caught up to Claire’s excellence when he got into Oxford but even that became too much. So he understood. Still, listening to cutting, uncomfortable silence at the very notion he was doing well for himself was nothing short of painful.  
Footsteps against the stone steps snapped Posner from his daydream.  
“A fellow smoker” began the priest. “Don't suppose you’ve got a spare one of those?” he asked, leaning against the wall next to David. Wordlessly, David hands a cigarette to the priest who puts it in his mouth. Posner flicked his lighter, watching the flames light up the crinkles and crevices on the priest’s face before putting it back in his pocket.  
“My names Donald by the way but everyone calls me Scripps. Don’t know why, I gu-”  
The priest trailed off as he watched David climb the steps back to the restaurant.  
“Fuck you, then.”  
Posner turned around, shocked. He hadn’t expected the celebration for his father’s engagement to involve him arguing with a Catholic priest in a restaurant smoking area. But Scripps was laughing. Posner chuckled and smiled back at him before turning on his heels and going inside. 

*

Posner rested his elbows on the bar and his head in his hands, idly glancing around for a bartender when his eyes rested on his brother-in-law, the supposedly recovering alcoholic downing a suspiciously golden liquid from a glass tumbler. Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, Posner walked over to him. 

“Apple juice?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.  
“Yeah” replied Martin, wincing at the harsh aftertaste of alcohol in his throat. Posner shook his head in disgust and turned to walk away but he felt Martin’s hand gently clasp his shoulder.  
“Listen, David. I just want to say, I am so interested to see how you manage to make tonight all about yourself”. It was a fair assessment. Especially after the stunt he had pulled at his step-mothers gallery opening, it was a fair assessment. Or at least it would’ve been coming from anyone but Martin. Posner turned to walk back to the table before feeling Martin’s hand on his arm once more.  
“Hey. We probably shouldn’t arrive together. People will talk.”  
David watched as his brother-in-law sauntered back to the table, spinning his car keys in one hand and holding all of Claire’s trust in the other. Finally making eye contact with a bartender, Posner returned to his earlier position and ordered himself another drink. 

*

“So do you do many older weddings or is it mostly spring chickens?” asked Martin as Posner set his wine glass onto the table.  
“I don’t think that-” started their step-mother.  
“Actually, neither.” interrupted Scripps. “This is my first wedding.”  
“Do you know, I’ve always been so suspicious of organised religion but I have to say, I’ve recently found that Catholicism really speaks to me” offered the step-mother, gathering pieces of pasta on her fork. Posner rolled his eyes. There was a small part of him that wanted to respect her, her beliefs and her wishes because she made his father happy. There was, however, a much larger part of him that believed her sudden taking up of a religion different to their family’s was a desperate attempt to pull his father closer to her by distancing him from his previous wife and the children they had together.  
“Plus it would be rather nice to have a real priest at the wedding.” she added.  
“Are you a real priest?” asked Posner, quickly.  
“I am. Yeah, I am a real priest.”  
The sound of scraping plates and sipping wine was the only thing cutting through the silence and Posner would’ve felt the hole his step-mother was beginning to burn into him with her stare, had he stopped looking at Scripps. 

Breaking the silence with a cough, Claire began, “I really respect your newfound interest in Christianity, dad. I mean, it’s all about positive energy at the end of the day. You have to really look inside yourself if you want to grow as a person, it isn’t just about what you do. Putting pine nuts on your salad doesn’t make you a grown-up”.

“Fucking does” whispered Posner into his wine, not quite as quietly as he would’ve like. Scripps chuckled. Everybody else glared at him. 

“Right” said the step-mother, through an uncomfortable giggle. “I think me and Claire should retire to the ladies room for a bit, don’t you think Claire?”  
Taking an extraordinarily large gulp of wine, David watched as his step-mother ushered Claire into the restaurant bathroom. The sound of cutlery against china returned itself to the spotlight.  
“I think that a trip to the little boys room would do me good too.” offered David’s father. If avoiding confrontation and uncomfortable situations was important to the job market, it would have been at the top of the special skills section on his CV. 

*

“Now that the, uh, sensitive parties have gone” began Martin, signally to a waitress, “we should talk”.  
“About what?” asked Scripps.  
“About those two”. Martin gestured at the couples empty seats before turning to the waitress who had appeared at his side. “I’ll have another bottle of this please, sweetheart.” he ordered, handing the waitress an empty bottle.  
Posner rolled his eyes. “What about those two?”  
“I mean, come on!” began Martin. “You really think she loves him? Please, she just doesn’t want to be left on the shelf”. Scripps shoots him a questioning look. Posner doesn’t need to, much to his despair he knows exactly where Martin’s going with this. “Look, these women. Most of them, they don’t really give a shit about whoever they marry so long as they don’t look like nobody wants them. A husband on a low light is fine as long as they seem desirable to everybody else.”  
“Claire loves you” offered Posner, setting his glass down on the table hard enough that a few drops spilled over onto the tablecloth.  
“Does she fuck! Look, David. Your sister doesn’t give a shit about what I do. She’ll put up with whatever because she knows that nobody else is going to deal with her uptight, boring, naggy bitch tendencies!”  
As Posner stood up from his seat, he let his chair fall to the floor, taking what little respect his family had for him with it. Even in hindsight, however, punching Martin was entirely justified. What was unfortunate was the right hook that Martin landed on Posner’s nose in retaliation, sending blood running down his chin and Posner himself flying into Scripps, his elbow colliding with the priest's eye.  
“Is there anything I can-” began the waitress, before Martin’s arm, in trying to shoo her away, knocked the tray of drinks into her face, resulting in her white shirt turning a garish shade of blood red and red wine purple. What was probably the most unfortunate, however, was that the three remaining members of David’s family had begun to return to the table just as his knuckles struck Martin’s nose. 

*

“Can I do anything?” called a voice from outside the bathroom.  
“No, thank you”. Posner replied, rinsing the cloth underneath the tap once more.  
“They’ve all gone, you know?” called the voice again.  
Posner tilted his head back with a sigh, trying to stop the nosebleed from starting up again as the bathroom door creaked open.  
“I got your coat by the way.” offered Scripps, setting David’s jacket down on the sink.  
“Thank you. Are you okay?” asked David.  
“Yeah. Are you?”  
“Fine.”  
After a pause, Scripps began, “Look, there’s obviously something going on and I don’t want to overstep any boundaries but if you ever want to talk to someone-”. He stopped, rummaging through his jeans pocket. “I’m there.” he finished, handing Posner a white card. David slipped it into his pocket with a smile and without a word, he left. 

*

As he stalked along the night streets, lit by car headlights and neon bar signs, Posner could feel the blood start to trickle from his nose again. He reached into his pocket and began to untangle the knots in his headphones when a car horn startled him out of his trance. He turned to see Claire, leant against an open taxi and waving at him, rather aggressively. Posner turned and walked toward her before sliding past his sister and ducking into the backseat of the car.  
“Can you take us t-” he began.  
“Can you take us to the nearest hospital?” interrupted Claire before turning to David. “I think Martin broke your fucking nose”.  
David smiled at her, reluctantly, resting his head against the icy glass of the taxi window and fiddling with the tangled headphones he’d returned to his pocket. It was Claire that broke the silence.  
“The priest is quite hot.”  
“So hot.”


	2. of g&t and god

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when making his own decisions, posner goes to visit the Priest and winds up drinking gin and tonic and denying God to his face. when being told what to do by his sister, he lawyers up in an attempt not to get sued by martin. for his own safety, claire will be making all decisions for posner from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dakin rights !!   
> i wanna say im gonna try and update this more often but the second i do something will go horribly wrong and i won't be able to update for months again.   
> no criticism, we live in an echo chamber that our writing is at least mediocre because we need at least one source of self-esteem like MEN

Breathing into his hands, Posner adjusted his elbows on the pew, trying to ease the red marks that had formed on his arms from leaning there just a little too long. He stared up at the pulpit, more specifically the man standing behind it. Scripps was mid-way through the Lord’s Prayer and hadn’t noticed the not-quite-yet familiar face resting in the back of his church. Posner positioned his chin on his knuckles, mouthing the prayer along with the Priest, or what words he could remember from primary school. He settled into Scripps’s voice and, although the words never brought him much comfort, the man uttering them was beginning to. A few tedious hymns and uncomfortable stares from church-goers who couldn’t place him later, Scripps spoke again. 

“Please be seated”. 

“And also with you” Posner responded before squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment and breathing a sigh of unease. He opened his eyes once more to see the other parish members scattered down around him and Scripps beaming down at him with a surprised warmth in his eyes. Throwing him a small smile and a wave, Posner sat. Scripps chuckled to himself, eyes fixated on his feet. If Posner didn’t know any better he would’ve sworn he saw a blush fade onto the other man's cheeks. 

“So today’s-”, began Scripps, “Tod- uhhm. Today’s notices”. He stammered, rubbing his clenched hands together. “There’s a raffle at tomorrow’s fete to raise funds for th- ummm”. He shook his head to clear it, looking down at his notes. “Sorry.” he laughed, brows furrowed in frustration. Posner bit the inside of his cheeks, trying to swallow a chuckle. The other man’s words dissolved into the background as David’s attention turned toward his features. His eyes flickered from the curve of Scripp’s nose, to the crinkles around his mouth when he smiled and across the slowly fading purple of the bruise over his eye. Snapped out of his daydreams by the people around him filing out of the church, Posner breathed in and leant back into his seat. Watching, as discreetly as he could muster, Scripps make his way toward the entrance Posner followed the orderly queue of believers. 

“Hello” offered Scripps, when David finally reached him, a look of affectionate confusion spreading across his face.

“Hi” Posner began, pausing to take in the somewhat concerningly attractive green and white robes the Priest was wearing. “This is lovely” he smiled, gesturing to the get-up. 

“Thanks. You know, I sort of assumed they’d have you locked up by now” 

“No, I keep trying but they just won’t take me!” laughed Posner.   
Scripps laughed too, his eyes never leaving Posner’s. 

“Listen, I am so sorry about your eye, I-” 

“No, don’t worry about it,” Scripps cut him off “It makes me look tough. I told them all some bullshit story… It doesn’t matter. As long as you’re okay?” 

“Oh me? Yeah I’m fine.”   
Posner breathed in, glancing down at his feet. Maybe coming here wasn’t a good plan. He really didn’t have all that much to say to the Priest or God for that matter. However, considering there had been this uncomfortable pull sitting in his chest that, whenever questioned, would simply flash him a picture of Scripps’s face, Posner thought that maybe God would have something to say to him. Scripps gave Posner a tight smile, tilting his head back slightly. 

“Do you drink tea?” 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Toying with the sleeve of his jumper, Posner glanced around the Priest’s office, taking the various religious paintings and paraphernalia, as well as the surprising abundance of cheap tat scattered across the room. Eventually, his eyes rested on the tattered, dog-eared bible that lay on the table in front of him and he reached his hand out to fiddle with the well-loved spine. 

“Tea!” announced Scripps, tray in hand and closing the office door with his foot. Posner snapped his hand back from the Bible and smiled up at Scripps. He smiled back, placing the tray on the table. “I didn’t know whether or not you w-” he began, but was cut off by a wave of scalding hot tea across his arm and assorted biscuits tumbling over onto the floor as his hand collided with David’s. 

“Shit!” shouted Scripps, jerking his arm back and shaking his wrist, sending hot tea droplets flying all over both the room and Posner. David reached out nearest vaguely absorbent looking cloth to mop up the spill that was slowly but surely starting to trickle onto the floor.   
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” continued the Priest clumsily rounding up the fallen Hobnobs off the ground. Dumping the biscuits onto the table, he caught sight of the sopping, not-quite-as-white-as-it-once-had-been, cloth that David had used to wipe up the mess. Tentatively, he peeled it up from the table, letting it hang and drip between his fingertips, a slightly panicked look on his face. 

“Oh, shit! Is that holy?” ask Posner, mirroring the other man's concern. 

“Slightly less that it was before” he drawled, still staring at the cloth in disbelief. Breathing a heavy sigh, he shook his head. “It’s fine. It’s fine, he’ll understand, he’s the understanding sort” reasoned Scripps, gesturing toward the ceiling. He threw the still soaking cloth under his chair and sat down, trying to avoid dunking his elbows directly in the splashes of tea they didn’t manage to clear up. 

Raising the cup to his lips, Posner began “S-“ 

“What time is it?” 

“It-“ Posner tried, looking down at his watch.

“Do you want a proper drink? I’ve got cans of gin and tonic. They’re from M&S!” Scripps raised his eyebrows at Posner, grinning questioningly. 

“W-”

“I will if you will.” 

“I mean” Posner paused, looking down at his watch once more. It was just past 10 o’clock. 

“Sure. Why no?” he shrugged with a nervous chuckle. 

Scripps all but leaped from his seat, heading straight for an ill-placed wardrobe on the other side of the room. He opened the door, pulling two cans of gin and tonic from a plastic bag on one of the shelves. He spun around, offering Posner one of the cans along with a wide smile before sitting down again. 

Opening the can to a fizz, Posner asked “So, you’re a cool Priest then?”

“A ‘cool Priest’? What’s a ‘cool Priest’? No, I’m a big reader with no friends. Are you a cool person?” 

“I’m an average person.” 

“Average?” 

“Normal.” 

“You’re a ‘normal’ person. What makes you a normal person?” 

“Well, I’m not Catholic for a star-”   
An immediate, harsh crash cut Posner off, bringing the conversation to an abrupt stop. Posner spun in his chair, can still in hand, to the now floored artwork that was once behind him, the painted face of Jesus staring up at him from amongst the cluttered pile of papers and plastic bags on the ground. Slowly, he turned back around to face Scripps, a look of something between disbelief and discomfort. Scripps looked surprised but utterly satisfied. He chuckled. 

“I love it when he does that.”   
Leaning back in his chair, Posner let out a shaky breath. His eyes darted around the room, not wanting to look at Scripps or anything relating to Jesus or the Catholic Church. Amongst the now dry, sticky tea stains and varied clutter, Posner spotted a notebook, open on a half-filled page. 

“New sermon?” he asked, reaching for the book. 

“No, no, no. Nope” Scripps laughed, nervously, snatching the book from Posner’s hand and holding it above his head. Seeing the look of bewilderment on Posner’s face, he started. 

“I write restaurant reviews for the parish magazine. I actually just came up with a really good title for this one.” 

“Go on then, what is it?”

“Oh no, It’s really not cool.” 

“Neither are we” remarked Posner, holding up his can. Scripps sucked in a breath, tucked the book under his chin and looked straight at his feet. 

“I’d spend forty days and forty nights in that dessert”   
Posner uttered a shaky laugh, mind going entirely blank. When it did eventually kick itself into function again, all that he could come up with was - ‘Oh my God, I want to fuck a Priest’.   
Posner finished his G&T at a deliberately steady pace. He didn’t want to appear rude, however, drinking cans of M&S cocktails with a Priest was low on his ‘To Do List’ and drinking cans of M&S cocktails with a Priest he secretly fancied was even lower. Eventually, as a day of trying to focus on menial tasks without wondering if he’d be going to a Hell he didn’t really believe in came to a close, Posner climbed into bed. Opening his laptop and shutting off the light, he imagined the look of perplexed concern on the face of anyone who were to see ‘can catholic priests be gay?’, ‘celibacy definition’ and a multitude of other jarring questions in his internet search history. 

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Posner shook his knee and tossed his phone from hand to hand. Claire had asked him to meet her here, only he wasn’t entirely sure somehow. From the signage, it seemed like a solicitor’s office but it would be nothing short of wishful thinking to believe she might be finally leaving Martin. Just as he opened his phone to call and ask where she was. Claire came darting around the corner, furiously texting as her long grey coat flew behind her. She looked frantic and stressed. Everything seemed normal. 

“Up.” she commanded, pulling at Posner’s shoulder and thrusting her phone into her pocket. 

“Hey! Off!” he shouted, brushing her hand away. “What is this? What are we doing here? Do you ne-” he stopped, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Do you need a lawyer?” 

“No” she began, gathering herself together “You do.”   
Posner cocked his head to the side and stared at her in panicked confusion.   
“Martin’s pressing charges. I wish he wasn’t but he is. I’m getting you a good lawyer under the condition that you tell absolutely no-one that I’m getting you a good lawyer, understand?” 

Posner blinked at her. He didn’t know what part of his brain processes new information but he knew he wanted a refund. He screwed his eyes shut in a vague attempt to reset his train of thought.   
“W-” 

“Oh, for God’s sake!” said Claire, grabbing by the arm and yanking him toward one of the doors scattered about the waiting area. The door was pretty standard, wooden and white, the sort of thing you could find by walking into any house on any street. Screwed into the centre of it though was a white plate with the name ‘Stuart Dakin’ etched in gold.   
“Right, I’ve filled him in on the basics” Claire explained, turning to face Posner

“That your husbands a piece of shit?” 

“Shut up. Let me do the talking and for the love of God - (Posner really wished she’d stop mentioning him) - don’t flirt with him.” She glared at Posner, pointing a long boney finger directly at his chest. 

“I’m not going to f-”

Posner was cut off by the door to the office, swinging open. Standing in the doorframe was a dark-haired man, taller than Posner but only slightly, with thick, black eyebrows, stubble and arms that Posner couldn’t bring himself to look away from.  
“-ucking hell!” he finished before letting out a laugh at his own embarrassment. “Sorry” he muttered to his sister, who looked like the veins in her forehead were about to burst open at any minute. He watched his sister and Stuart exchange greetings and pleasantries before following them both into the office. As the door closed behind them, he wondered if there was any way he could get away with sleeping with Stuart without his sister breaking into his flat and committing several acts of violence against him, most of which would probably be banned by the United Nations.


End file.
